Association with Hongkong and Macao—Activity of British navy in suppressing piracy—Its historic importance—Government relations with pirates—The convoy system—Gross abuse—Hongkong legislation—Progress of steam navigation—Fatal to piracy.
A factor which has done so much to shape commercial intercourse with China as piracy cannot be properly ignored in a survey like the present. The settlements of Hongkong and Macao were forced into contact with this time-honoured institution, for these places are situated as near to the piratical centre as they are to that of the typhoon zone. From the time of the first war down to quite recent years the British squadron on the China station was almost engrossed in the two duties of surveying the coast and rivers, and of repressing piracy,—services which were not interrupted even during the progress of a war with the Imperial Government. Both proceedings were anomalous, being a usurpation of the sovereign functions of the Chinese Government. That Government, however, never evinced more than a languid interest in operations against its piratical subjects. Piracy, as such, seems indeed to have enjoyed that fatalistic toleration which the Chinese Government and people are wont to extend to every species of abuse, on the principle that what cannot be cured must be endured. Nor is China the only country where banditti have established with their future victims a conventional relation like that of certain predatory animals which are said to live on easy terms with the creatures destined to become their prey. Successful leaders, whether of brigands or of sea-rovers, have from time to time attained high political status in the empire. Wingrove Cooke says:—
Whenever anything occurs of historic importance we always find that some bandit has had a hand in it. The land was always full of them. When the Tartars possessed themselves of China, one of these bandit chiefs had just possessed himself of Peking, and the last of the Ming race had just hanged himself. It was a pirate who drove the Dutch out of Formosa; the son of a "celebrated pirate" who helped the Cantonese to defend their city against the Tartars; and it was a pirate who the other day destroyed the Portuguese piratical fleet at Ningpo. In all ages and at all times China has been coasted by pirates and traversed by bands of robbers.
In the 'Peking Gazette,' which he quotes, the Imperial Government itself thus describes the rule of the robbers:—
They carry off persons in order to extort ransoms for them; they falsely assume the characters of police officers; they build fast boats professedly to guard the grain-fields, and into these they put from ten to twenty men, who cruise along the rivers, violently plundering the boats of travellers, or forcibly carrying off the wives and daughters of the tanka boat people. The inhabitants of the villages and hamlets fear these robbers as they would tigers, and do not offer them any resistance. The husbandman must pay these robbers a charge, else as soon as his crop is ripe it is plundered, and the whole field laid bare. In the precincts of the metropolis they set fire to places during the night, that, under pretence of saving and defending, they may plunder and carry off.
When it suits the Government to enlist rebels or robbers in its service it condones their misdeeds, and confers on them rank and honour. The chief of the Black Flags, who kept up a guerilla war against the French in Tongking, was a recent case in point, as was also, if report speaks truly, the late gallant Admiral Ting, who perished in the Chinese forlorn-hope at Weihai-wei in 1895. The relationship between the authorities and the freebooters is often of so equivocal a character, that foreign naval officers in their crusade against pirates may have failed at times to make the proper discrimination. Vessels seized as pirates occasionally escaped the fate which should have awaited them by proving themselves revenue protectors. But if the Government ever suffered from cases of mistaken identity, the balance was handsomely redressed; for piracy and smuggling being ingeniously blended, the forces of the British colony might in their turn be induced, by information supplied by the Chinese authorities, to act as revenue cruisers, under the belief that they were being led against pirates. The hard fights resulting in the destruction of piratical fleets bearing all the evidences of criminality were, however, too frequent to permit any doubt as to the general character of the craft so treated.
But the anti-piratical agency was not confined to the commissioned officers of her Majesty's navy. Foreigners of all nations were drawn into the coasting traffic, in various capacities, as an antidote to piracy, with benefit, no doubt, to legitimate trade, yet not without some serious drawbacks. Dr Eitel tells us that during the first decade after the war the waters of Hongkong swarmed with pirates, that the whole coast-line was under the control of a blackmailing confederacy, and that the peaceful trading junk was obliged to be heavily armed, so that externally there was nothing to distinguish a trader from a pirate. During this period European seamen took service with the native pirates who made Hongkong their headquarters, whence they drew their supplies, and where they kept themselves informed as to the movements of valuable merchandise and of war-vessels. Foreigners were enlisted also in the service of the honest trader; Chinese merchants began to charter small European sailing-vessels for coasting voyages, whereby they gained the protection of a European flag, the prestige of a European crew, and the better sea-going qualities of a European vessel. Steamers also began to be employed to convoy the native junks.
The extension of the convoy system brought in its train the most terrible abuses, the class of foreigners so employed being as ready to sell their services to the pirates as to the merchants, and to turn from protector to oppressor of the honest trader with as much facility as Chinese fishermen and pirates interchange their respective parts. Many tragedies were enacted along the coast and rivers of China—many more, no doubt, than ever became known to the foreign public. Mr Medhurst, consul at Shanghai, said that the foreigners employed by the Chinese to protect their property on the water were guilty of atrocities of all kinds in the inner waters, which the Chinese authorities and people were unable to prevent. And Mr Adkins, consul at Chinkiang on the Yangtze, reported in the same year, 1862, a series of brutal murders committed by foreigners on the river, with which the native authorities declined to interfere. The criminals, not being amenable to any jurisdiction but their own, were thus left free to commit their outrages, unless some representative of their own country happened to be on the spot. The Taiping rebellion attracted desperate characters from all quarters, to whom it was a matter of indifference under what flag they served—pillage being their sole inducement. The only conspicuous case of trial of a foreigner for piracy was that of a young American, Eli Boggs, who was condemned in the Supreme Court of Hongkong in 1857, and sentenced to transportation for life. From such experiences it is to be apprehended that should any part of the Chinese empire become disorganised, lawless foreigners will be a more terrible scourge to the inhabitants than even the native pirates and bandits.
Of the abuses developed by the convoy system, and of the character of the foreigners concerned therein, a graphic yet matter-of-fact account is given by Wingrove Cooke. As the state of rampant lawlessness which prevailed at the time on the China coast, and the traditional attitude of the Government towards freebooters, are so perfectly illustrated in his concise narrative of the destruction of a Portuguese convoy, no apology is needed for quoting a passage or two from Mr Cooke's letter dated Ningpo, August 24, 1857:—
The fishing-boats which ply off the mouth of the river Yung pay convoy duties to the extent of 50,000 dollars a-year; and the wood-junks that ply between Ningpo and Foochow, and the other native craft, raise the annual payment for protection to 200,000 dollars (£70,000) annually. These figures are startling, but I have taken pains to ascertain their correctness.
The vessels employed in this convoy service were Portuguese lorchas. These vessels were well armed and equipped. There were no mandarin junks and no Portuguese ships of war to cope with them or control them, and they became masters of this part of the coast. It is in the nature of things that these privateers should abuse their power. They are accused of the most frightful atrocities. It is alleged that they made descents upon villages, carried off the women, murdered the men, and burnt the habitations. They became infinitely greater scourges than the pirates they were paid to repel. It is alleged, also, that complaints to the Portuguese consul were vain; that Portuguese sailors taken red-handed and handed over to this consul were suffered to escape from the consular prison. Rightly or wrongly, the Chinese thought that the consul was in complicity with the ruffians who were acting both as convoy and as pirates.... The leader of the pirate fleet was—I am going back now to a time three years ago—a Cantonese named A'Pak. The authorities at Ningpo, in their weakness, determined to make terms with him rather than submit to the tyranny of the Portuguese.
A'Pak was made a mandarin of the third class; and his fleet—not altogether taken into Government pay, for that the Chinese could not afford—was nominally made over to A'Pak's brother.... After a few of these very sanguinary provocations, A'Pak—not, it is believed, without the concurrence of the Taotai of Ningpo—determined to destroy this Portuguese convoy fleet.
For this purpose A'Pak's brother collected his snake-boats and convoy junks from along the whole coast, and assembled about twenty of them, and perhaps 500 men. The Portuguese were not long in hearing of these preparations, but they seem to have been struck with panic. Some of their vessels went south, some were taken at the mouth of the river. Seven lorchas took refuge up the river, opposite the Portuguese consulate. The sailors on board these lorchas landed some of their big guns, and put the consulate in a state of defence, and perhaps hoped that the neighbourhood of the European houses and the character of the consulate would prevent an attack. Not so. On the day I have above mentioned the Canton fleet came up the river. The Portuguese consul immediately fled. The lorchas fired one broadside at them as they approached, and then the crews deserted their vessels and made for the shore. About 200 Cantonese, accompanied by a few Europeans, followed these 140 Portuguese and Manila-men ashore. A fight took place in the streets. It was of very short duration, for the Portuguese behaved in the most dastardly manner. The Manila-men showed some spirit, but the Portuguese could not even persuade themselves to fight for their lives behind the walls of their consulate. The fortified house was taken and sacked by these Chinamen, the Portuguese were pursued among the tombs, where they sought refuge, and forty of them were shot down, or hunted and butchered with spears....
Merciless as this massacre was, and little as is the choice between the two sets of combatants, it must be owned that the Cantonese acted with purpose and discipline. Three trading Portuguese lorchas which lay in the river with their flags flying were not molested; and no European, not a Portuguese, was even insulted by the infuriated butchers. The stories current of Souero and his Portuguese followers rivalled the worst of the tales of the buccaneers, and public opinion in Ningpo and the foreign settlement was strongly in favour of the Cantonese.
But if Hongkong was the centre of piratical organisation, it was also the centre of effort to put it down. The exploits of her Majesty's ships, destroying many thousands of heavily-armed piratical junks, were loyally supplemented by the legislation and the police of the Colonial Government, which were continuously directed towards the extermination of piracy. These measures, however, did not appear to make any material impression on the pest. As part of his general policy of suppressing crime, the most drastic steps were taken by Sir Richard MacDonnell against pirates. He struck at the root of the evil within the colony itself by penalising the receivers of stolen goods, and by a stricter surveillance over all Chinese vessels frequenting the harbour. He also endeavoured to secure the co-operation of the Chinese Government, without which no permanent success could be hoped for. This was not, indeed, the first time that Chinese co-operation had been invoked. In one of the hardest fought actions against a piratical stronghold—that of Sheipu Bay, near Ningpo, in 1856—her Majesty's brig Bittern was towed into action through the bottle-neck of the bay by a Chinese-owned steamer. But the assistance rendered to the Government of Hongkong by the steam-cruisers of the Chinese customs service was of too ambiguous a character to be of real use, smugglers rather than pirates being the object of the Chinese pursuit—smugglers of whom the high Chinese officials had good reason to be jealous.
The result of the police activity and of regulations for the coast traffic was a great diminution in the number of piracy cases brought before colonial magistrates. This, however, by itself was not conclusive as to the actual decrease of the crime, for it may only have indicated a change of strategy forced on the pirates by the vigorous action of the Colonial Government. Foreign vessels were by no means exempt from the attentions of the piratical fleets, though they seldom fell a prey to open assault at sea. A different form of tactics was resorted to where foreigners were the object of attack: it was to embark as passengers a number of the gang with arms secreted, who rose at a signal and massacred the ship's officers. Even after steam vessels had virtually superseded sailers on the coast this device was too often successful through want of care on the part of the master. These attacks were carried out with great skill and daring, sometimes on the short passage of forty miles between Hongkong and Macao, and in several instances almost within the harbour limits of Hongkong itself.
While awarding full credit to the indefatigable exertions of the British squadron in China—the only one that ever troubled itself in such matters—and to the unremitting efforts of the colony of Hongkong, the reduction, if not the extinction, of armed piracy on the coast of China must be attributed largely to the commercial development, in which the extension of the use of steam has played the principal part. Organised by foreigners, and employed by Chinese, lines of powerful steamers have gradually monopolised the valuable traffic, thus rendering the calling of the buccaneer obsolete and profitless. Foreign traders, however, do well not to forget the debt they owe to the institution which they have superseded. But for the pirates, and the scarcely less piratical exactions of officials, the Chinese would not have sought the assistance and the protection of foreign men, foreign ships, or foreign steamers. Piracy has thus not only worked towards its own cure, but has helped to inaugurate an era of prosperous trade, based on the consolidation of the interests of Chinese and foreigners, such as may foreshadow further developments in which the same elements of success may continue in fruitful combination.
Lorchas—Outrage on the Arrow—Question of access to city—Tone of British Foreign Office—Firm tone of British Government—Destruction of Canton factories and flight of foreign residents—Operations in river.
From the earliest days of the British occupation it had been the aim of the Canton authorities to destroy the "junk" trade of Hongkong by obstructive regulations, for which the supplementary treaty of 1843 afforded them a certain warrant. But as the Chinese began to settle in large numbers on the island the claims of free commerce asserted themselves, and gradually made headway against the restrictive schemes of the mandarins. The Government fostered the legitimate commercial ambition of the Chinese colonists by passing ordinances whereby they were enabled to register vessels of their own, sail them under the British flag, and trade to such ports as were open to British shipping. Certificates of registry were granted only to men of substance and respectability who were lessees of Crown land in the colony. The class of vessel for which colonial registers were granted was of native build and rig, more or less modified, of good sea-going qualities, known by the local name of lorcha. Naturally the Canton authorities looked askance at any measure aimed at the liberation of trade, and so truculent an imperial commissioner as Yeh was not likely to miss an opportunity of wreaking vengeance on the "native-born" who dared to exercise privileges derived from residence in the hateful colony.
One of these registered vessels was the Arrow, commanded by an Englishman and manned by Chinese. This vessel was in the course of her traffic boarded at Canton at midday on October 8, 1856, by order of the Chinese authorities, with marked official ostentation, her crew forcibly carried off on a charge, according to a Chinese version, "of being in collusion with barbarians," and her ensign hauled down. How this outrage on the British flag was perpetrated, how resisted, and what came of it, have been so often set forth that there is no need to dwell upon the details here. The traditional insolence of the Chinese was reasserted in all its virulence, as in the days of Commissioner Lin, and once more the British agents were confronted with the dilemma of aggravating past griefs by submission or of putting their foot down and ending them. A single-minded and courageous man was in charge of British interests in Canton, and, left with a free hand, there could be no doubting the line Mr Parkes would take. The decision, however, lay with Sir John Bowring, governor of Hongkong, her Majesty's plenipotentiary and superintendent of trade, and with the naval commander-in-chief, Sir Michael Seymour.
We have seen that the likelihood of sooner or later having to clear accounts with the authorities of Canton had not been absent from the mind of her Majesty's Government for some years previously, though by no initial act of their own would they have brought the question to a crisis. If the governor entertained doubts whether the Arrow insult furnished adequate provocation, his decision was materially helped by the deadlock in relations which followed. A simple amende for the indignity offered to the flag was asked for, such as the Chinese were adepts in devising without "losing face"; but all discussion was refused; the viceroy would not admit any foreign official to a personal conference. The small Arrow question thus became merged in the larger one of access to the city, and to the provincial authorities, which had on various pretexts been denied to the British representatives in contravention of the treaty of 1842.
It happened that the question had lately assumed a somewhat definite place in the agenda of the British plenipotentiary. Lord Clarendon had in 1854 instructed Sir John Bowring to take any opportunity of bringing the "city question" to a solution, and Sir John addressed a long despatch to Commissioner Yeh on the subject in April of that year. It had no effect, and was followed up a few months later by an effort in another direction. The turbulent character of the Cantonese people and the impracticable arrogance of the imperial officers who successively held office there had often prompted an appeal to Cæsar, and more than one attempt had been made in times gone by to submit the Canton grievances to the judgment of the Imperial Court. These attempts were inspired by a total misconception of the relations between the provinces and the capital. In the year 1854, however, it was decided to renew the effort to open direct communications with the Imperial Government. And circumstances seemed to promise a more favourable issue to the mission than had attended preceding ones. The time had come when a revision of the tariff and commercial articles of the treaties might be claimed, and besides the standing grievance at Canton there were sundry matters in connection with the fulfilment of the treaties which together constituted a justifying pretext for an unarmed expedition to the Peiho. The chances of a favourable reception were thought to be strengthened by the combination of the Treaty Powers. Sir John Bowring and the American Minister, Mr McLane, accordingly went together, with a competent staff of interpreters, to Tientsin, where they were soon followed by the French secretary of Legation.
High officials were appointed to treat with them, because it was feared that if some courtesy were not shown them the barbarians would return south and join the rebels, who were then threatening the southern provinces. But the net result of the mission was that it was allowed to depart in peace. Lord Elgin, commenting on the proceedings, sums up the instructions to the Chinese officials, gathered from the secret reports afterwards discovered, as, "Get rid of the barbarians," which would be an equally exhaustive rendering of all the instructions ever given to Chinese plenipotentiaries. On the occasion of this visit to the Peiho the foreign plenipotentiaries resorted, as had been done on sundry previous occasions, to the oriental custom of approaching a great man gift in hand. In the depleted condition of the imperial treasury they calculated that the recovery of the duties unpaid during the recent interregnum at Shanghai would be a tempting bait to the Peking Government. The offer, however, could not, it would appear, be intelligibly conveyed to the minds of the northern functionaries: unacquainted with commercial affairs, and misconstruing the proposal as a plea for the forgiveness of arrears, they at once conceded the sop to Cerberus, pleased to have such a convenient way of closing the mouths of the barbarians.
In December following a favourable opportunity seemed to present itself for renewing the attack on the exclusiveness of Canton. The Taiping rebels had blockaded the river, and in a "pitched battle" defeated the imperialist fleet and were actually threatening the city. In this emergency Yeh implored the aid of the English forces. Sir John Bowring thereupon proceeded to Canton with a naval force of five ships to protect the foreign factories, the presence of the squadron having at the same time the desired deterrent effect on the rebels, who withdrew their forces. Now at last the governor felt confident that the barrier to intercourse was removed, and he applied to the viceroy for an interview; but Yeh remained obdurate, refused audience as before, and with all the old contumely. Precisely the same thing had happened in the north in 1853, when the governor of Kiangsu applied through Consul Alcock to the superintendent of trade, Sir George Bonham, for the assistance of one of her Majesty's ships in defending Nanking against the expected attack of the Taipings. Divers communications of like tenor had, during several months, led up to this definite application. The appeal was most urgent, and yet in the title given to her Majesty's plenipotentiary the two important characters had been omitted, indicating that his power emanated from the ruler of an "independent sovereign state." "Such an omission," remarked Mr Alcock, "is characteristic of the race we have to deal with, for even in a time of danger to the national existence they cannot suppress their arrogance and contempt for barbarians." Arrogant and contemptuous of course they were, and yet it may perhaps be questioned whether such terms fully explain the mutilation of the plenipotentiary's official titles. Although they had been compelled by mechanical force to accord titles implying equality to foreign officials, yet in the innermost conviction of the Chinese an independent sovereign State was at that time almost unthinkable, and could only be expressed by a solecism. If, therefore, we ask how an imperial commissioner could demean himself by soliciting protection from the barbarians to whom he was denying the scantiest courtesy, we have to consider the point of view from which China had from time immemorial and without challenge regarded all the outer States. For it is the point of view that is paradoxical. To Yeh, considering barbarians merely as refractory subjects, there was no inconsistence in commanding their aid, while denying their requests. The position is analogous to that of Ultramontanes, who claim tolerance for themselves in heretical communities by a divine right which excludes the idea of reciprocity. This key to the history of foreign intercourse with China is too often forgotten.
Nothing daunted, Sir John returned to the charge in June 1855, on the occasion of the appointment of the new consul, Mr Alcock, whom he asked permission to introduce to the Imperial Commissioner. His letter was not even acknowledged for a month, and then in the usual contemptuous terms.
So far, indeed, from Yeh's being mollified by the assistance indirectly accorded to him in defending the city from rebel attack, or by the succession of respectful appeals made to him by Sir John Bowring, a new campaign of aggression was inaugurated against the lives and liberties of the foreign residents in Canton. This followed the traditional course. Inflammatory placards denouncing foreigners, and holding them up to the odium of the populace, were extensively posted about the city and suburbs in the summer of 1856. These, as usual, were followed by personal attacks on isolated Englishmen found defenceless, and, following the precedents of ten years before, the outbreaks of anti-foreign feeling in Canton found their echo also in Foochow, where an American gentleman met his death in a riot which was got up there in July. So serious was the situation becoming that Mr Consul Parkes, who had succeeded Mr Alcock in June, solemnly warned the Imperial Commissioner that such acts, if not promptly discountenanced by the authorities (who of course were well known to be the instigators), must inevitably lead to deplorable consequences. The Chinese reply to this remonstrance was the outrage on the lorcha Arrow. To isolate that incident, therefore, would be wholly to miss the significance of it: it would be to mistake the match for the mine.
Those who were on the spot and familiar with antecedent events could have no doubt whatever that, in condoning the present insults, the British authorities would have invited greater and always greater, as in the days of Lin. The tone of recent despatches from the Foreign Office fortified the governor in taking a strong resolution; the clearness of Consul Parkes' view made also a deep impression on him; and yet another factor should not be altogether overlooked which contributed its share in bringing the two responsible officials to a definite decision. It was not an unknown phenomenon in public life that two functionaries whose co-operation was essential should mistrust each other. This was distinctly the case with Sir John Bowring and Sir Michael Seymour. They needed some connecting medium to make them mutually intelligible, and it was found in the influence of local public opinion. The mercantile community, which for twenty years, or as long as they had had utterance, had never wavered in the conviction that in strength alone lay their safety, were to a man for vigorous measures at Canton. And it happened that, scarcely perceived either by themselves or by the other parties concerned, they possessed a special channel for bringing the force of their views to bear on the two responsible men. Sir John Bowring had himself deplored "the enormous influence wielded by the great and opulent commercial houses" when adverse to his projects. He was now to experience that influence in another sense, without perhaps recognising it, for when the wind is fair it makes slight impression on those whose sails it fills.
Among the business houses in China two stood pre-eminent. One had a son of the plenipotentiary for partner; both were noted for their princely hospitality, especially to officers of the navy. "Those princely merchants, Dent & Co., as well as Matheson," writes Admiral Keppel in his Diary, "kept open house. They lived in palaces." One of the two buildings occupied by the former firm, "Kiying House," which some twenty years later became the Hongkong Hotel, was as good as a naval club for all ranks, while admirals and post-captains found snug anchorage within the adjoining domain of the seniors of the firm. The two great houses did not always pull together, but on this occasion their separate action, converging on a single point, was more effectual than any half-hearted combination could have been. Night after night was the question of Canton discussed with slow deliberation and accumulating emphasis in the executive and the administrative, the naval and the political, camps respectively. Conviction was imbibed with the claret and cheroots, and it was not altogether without reason that what followed has sometimes been called the "Merchants' War."
The die was cast. The great Canton bubble, the bugbear of a succession of British Governments and representatives, was at last to be pricked, though with a delay which, however regrettable at the time, perhaps conduced to greater thoroughness in the long-run. Those of our readers who desire to trace the various operations against Canton during the twelve months which followed cannot do better than consult Mr Stanley Lane-Poole's 'Life of Sir Harry Parkes,' the volume of 'Times' correspondence by that sage observer and vivacious narrator, Mr Wingrove Cooke, and the delightful sailors book recently published by Vice-Admiral Sir W. R. Kennedy. The campaign unfolded itself in a drama of surprises. The force at the admiral's disposal being too small to follow up the initial movement against the city, which gave no sign of yielding by first intention, Sir Michael Seymour had to content himself with intimating to the Viceroy Yeh that, notwithstanding his Excellency's interdict, he had, with a guard of bluejackets, visited the Viceregal Yamên; and with keeping hostilities alive by a blockade of the river while awaiting reinforcements.
The Arrow incident occurred in October. In December the foreign factories were burned by the Chinese, and the Viceroy Yeh issued proclamations offering rewards for English heads. The mercantile community retired to Hongkong, a few to the quieter retreat of Macao. The vengeance of Commissioner Yeh pursued them exactly as that of Commissioner Lin had done in 1839. Assassinations were not infrequent on the outskirts of the city of Victoria; and in January 1857 the principal baker in the colony was induced to put a sack of arsenic into his morning supply of bread, which only failed of its effect through the excess of the dose acting as an emetic.
The early portion of the year 1857 was enlivened by active operations in hunting out Chinese war-junks in the various creeks and branches of the river, commenced by Commodore Elliot and continued on a brilliant scale by Commodore H. Keppel, who arrived opportunely in the frigate Raleigh, of which he speaks with so much pride and affection in his Memoirs. That fine vessel, however, was lost on a rock approaching Macao, sinking in shallow water in the act of saluting the French flag, a war vessel of that nationality having been descried in the anchorage. The commodore and his officers and crew, thus detached, were soon accommodated with small craft good for river service, and in a very short time they made a memorable cutting-out expedition as far as the city of Fatshan, destroying formidable and well-posted fleets of war-junks in what the commodore described as "one of the prettiest boat actions recorded in naval history." Sir W. Kennedy served as a midshipman in those expeditions, and his descriptions supply a much-needed supplement to that of the Admiral of the Fleet, correcting it in some particulars and filling in the gaps in a wonderfully realistic manner. No adequate estimate can be formed of the importance of the year's operations in the Canton river without reading Admiral Kennedy's brilliant but simple story.
The Canton imbroglio made the kind of impression that such occurrences are apt to do in England. The merits of the case being usually ignored, the bare incidents furnish convenient weapons with which to assail the Government that happens to be in office. Under such conditions statements can be made and arguments applied with all the freedom of a debating club. The Arrow trouble occasioned a temporary fusion of the most incongruous elements in English politics. When Lord Derby, Lord Lyndhurst, Bishop Wilberforce, Mr Cobden, Mr Bright, Mr Gladstone, and Mr Disraeli were found banded together as one man, it was neither common knowledge nor any sincere interest in the question at issue, but "unanimosity" towards the Premier, that inspired them. The Opposition orators took their brief from the published despatches of Commissioner Yeh, which they assumed as the starting-point of the China question, and found no difficulty whatever in discovering all the nobility and good faith on the Chinese side, the perfidy and brutality on the side of the British representative. Though successful in carrying a vote of censure on the Government, the attitude of the Coalition did not impress the public, and Lord Palmerston's appeal to the electorate was responded to by his being returned to power by a large majority.
How very little the question itself affected public men in England may be inferred from the notices of it in the Memoirs, since published, of leading statesmen of the period. The fate of China, or of British commerce there, was not in their minds at all, their horizon being bounded by the immediate fate of the Ministry, to them the be-all and end-all of national policy. What deplorable consequences all over the world have arisen from the insouciance of British statesmen as regards all matters outside the arena of their party conflicts!
Sir John Bowring was made the scapegoat of the war. A philosophical Radical, he had been president of the Peace Society, and his quondam friends could not forgive a doctrinaire who yielded to the stern logic of facts. As consul at Canton he had had better opportunities of studying the question of intercourse with the Chinese than any holder of his office either before or since his time. No one had worked more persistently for the exercise of the right of entry into Canton. Superseded in the office of plenipotentiary by the appointment of the Earl of Elgin as High Commissioner for Great Britain, Sir John Bowring remained Governor of Hongkong, and it fell to him to "do the honours" to his successor, from whom he received scant consideration. Indeed Lord Elgin made no secret of his aversion to the colony and all its concerns, and marked his feeling towards the governor by determining that he should never see the city of Canton—that Promised Land so soon to be opened to the world through Sir John's instrumentality.
Capture of Canton—The Treaty of Tientsin—Comments on the treaty—Sequel to the treaty—Omission to visit Peking—Comments thereon—How to deal with Chinese—Commissioners to Shanghai to negotiate the tariff—Two pressing questions to be settled—Delay of Commissioners' arrival—Resentment of Lord Elgin and change of tactics re Canton—Canton question same as Chinese question—Chinese demand for abandonment of Resident Minister—Lord Elgin's assent—Comments thereon—Treaty with Japan—The Taku disaster.
The transports bringing the troops from England were meanwhile hurrying at top speed—not in those days a very high one—round the Cape of Good Hope, and the navy was being reinforced by several powerful ships, including the mosquito squadron of gunboats which were destined to play so useful a part, first in the operations of war, and subsequently in patrolling the coast and rivers for the protection of peaceful traders. Lord Elgin's arrival in Hongkong, coinciding in time with that of the frigates Shannon, commanded by Sir William Peel, and Pearl, Captain Sotheby, put heart into the long-suffering British community at the port. But sinister news from India had reached Lord Elgin on his voyage to China, in consequence of which, and on the urgent request of the Governor-General, he took on himself to intercept the troopships wherever they could be met with, and turn their course to Calcutta. Before he had been many days in Hongkong, foreseeing an indefinite period of inaction in China, and being obliged in any case to wait the arrival of his French colleague, without whom no French co-operation could be had, Lord Elgin determined to proceed himself to Calcutta, taking with him the two frigates Shannon and Pearl. This welcome reinforcement not only arrived opportunely in India, but, as is well known, did heroic service in throwing back the tide of mutiny.
Fortune seemed in all this to be favouring the Chinese, nothing more hurtful threatening them than a passive blockade of the Canton river and its branches. But a fresh expedition was promptly despatched from England to take the place of that which had been diverted to India. A body of 1500 marines arrived in the autumn, and on them, supplemented by the Hongkong garrison, devolved the duty of bringing China to terms, the navy, of course, being the essential arm in all these operations.
Lord Elgin returned to China in ample time to meet the French plenipotentiary, Baron Gros. His lordship's policy had from the first been an interesting theme for speculation, not less so as the time for putting it in force drew near. It had been surmised that his object would be to leave Canton alone, and set out on another wild-goose chase to the north. That so futile a scheme should not be carried out without at least a protest, the mercantile community met Lord Elgin on his arrival in June with an address couched in the following terms:—
We venture upon no opinion at present respecting the readjustment of our relations with the empire at large, though always prepared to hold our advice and experience at your lordship's command; but upon that branch of the question which we distinguish as the "Canton difficulty" we would take this, the earliest opportunity, of recording our opinion—an opinion founded upon long, reluctant, and, we may add, traditional experience—that any compromise of it, or any sort of settlement which shall stop short of the complete humiliation of the Cantonese,—which shall fail to teach them a wholesome respect for the obligations of their own Government in its relations with independent Powers, and a more hospitable reception of the foreigner who resorts to their shores for the peaceable purposes of trade,—will only result in further suffering to themselves and further disastrous interruptions to us.
Many of us have already been heavy sufferers by the present difficulty. It must be apparent to your lordship that our best interests lie upon the side of peace, and upon the earliest solid peace that can be obtained. But, notwithstanding this, we would most earnestly deprecate any settlement of the question which should not have eliminated from it the very last element of future disorder.
The meaning of these weighty words, as interpreted by Wingrove Cooke, was, "You must take Canton, my lord, and negotiate at Peking with Canton in your possession." And he adds, "Such is the opinion of every one here, from the highest to the lowest." We learn from his private letters that it was by no means the opinion of the new plenipotentiary. "The course I am about to follow," he writes, "does not square with the views of the merchants." Yet his reply to their address was so diplomatic that he was able to say "it gave them for the moment wonderful satisfaction." The editor of Lord Elgin's letters suppresses the rest of the sentence. The new plenipotentiary hoped even "to conclude a treaty in Shanghai, and hasten home afterwards,"—a hope which could only coexist with an entire disregard of our whole previous experience in China; almost, one might argue, with an entire ignorance of the record.[37]
On his return from India, however, and on the assembling of the Allied forces, he found that the course prescribed by history and common-sense was, after all, the only practical one to follow, and that was to commence hostilities at Canton. Yet Lord Elgin seems to have submitted to the inexorable demands of circumstances with no very good grace. Indeed his attitude towards the Canton overture and his mission generally was decidedly anomalous. The two leading ideas running through the published portion of his correspondence were, "It revolts me, but I do it"; and, "Get the wretched business over and hurry home." Lord Elgin's mental constitution, as such, is of no interest to us except as it affected his acts and left its impress on the national interests in China. From that point of view, however, it is public property, and as much an ingredient in the history as any other quality of the makers of it. First, we find him at variance with the Government which commissioned him, in that he speaks with shame of his mission: "That wretched question of the Arrow is a scandal to us." Why? Her Majesty's Government had deliberated maturely on the Arrow question, had referred it to their law officers, had concluded it was a good case, and had written unreservedly in that sense to their representative in China. Was it, then, greater knowledge, or superior judgment, that inspired Lord Elgin to an opposite opinion? And in either case would it not have been better to have had the point cleared up before undertaking the mission?
But, in point of fact, the Arrow question was not the question with which Lord Elgin had to deal, as it had long before been merged, as we have said, into the much larger one of our official relations with China.
The truth seems to be that Lord Elgin came to China filled with the conviction that in all our disputes the Chinese had been the oppressed and we the oppressors. Of our intercourse with them he had nothing more complimentary or more definite to say than that it was "scandalous." For his own countrymen he had never a good word, for the Chinese nothing but good—until they came into collision with himself, when they at once became "fools and tricksters." Having assembled a hostile force in front of Canton, he writes, December 22, 1857, "I never felt so ashamed of myself in my life.... When I look at that town I feel that I am earning for myself a place in the Litany immediately after 'plague, pestilence, and famine.'" Becoming gradually reconciled to events, however, he writes, "If we can take the city without much massacre I shall think the job a good one, because no doubt the relations of the Cantonese with the foreign population were very unsatisfactory." But why "massacre," much or little? It was but a phantasy of his own he was thus deprecating. The curious point is, however, that Lord Elgin imagined that everybody was bent on this massacre except himself, and when all was over, and "there never was a Chinese town which suffered so little by the occupation of a hostile force," he appropriates the whole credit for this satisfactory issue! "If," he writes, "Yeh had surrendered on the mild demand made upon him, I should have brought on my head the imprecations both of the navy and the army, and of the civilians, the time being given by the missionaries and the women." An insinuation so purely hypothetical and so sweeping would not be seriously considered in any relation of life whatsoever; but no one who knows either the navy or the army would hesitate to affirm that the humanity of every officer and man in these services was as much beyond reproach as Lord Elgin's own, albeit it might assume a different form of expression. When the city, "doomed to destruction from the folly of its own rulers and the vanity and levity of ours," had been occupied, and the bugbear of massacre had vanished, the object of Lord Elgin's sympathies became shifted: "I could not help feeling melancholy when I thought that we were so ruthlessly destroying"—not the place or the people, but—"the prestige of a place which has been for so many centuries intact and undefiled by the stranger." Had he written this after witnessing some of the horrors of the city described by Wingrove Cooke, possibly these regrets for its defilement might have been less poignant. But though reverence for the mere antiquity of China is a most salutary lesson to inculcate in these our days, it is pathetic to see the particular man whose mission was to humble her historical prestige tortured by compunctions for what he is doing. One is tempted to wish the "job" had been intrusted to more commonplace hands.
Some of those English officials by whose vanity and levity the "city was doomed to destruction" were also writing their private letters, and this was the purport. "I confidently hope," wrote Mr Parkes, before Lord Elgin's first arrival in China, "that a satisfactory adjustment of all difficulties may be attained with a slight effusion of blood. Canton, it is true, must fall. I see no hope of any arrangement being arrived at without this primary step being effected, but I trust that with the fall of that city hostilities may end, and that the emperor may then consent to receive a representative at Peking." However, as soon as he gets to actual business with the Chinese, Lord Elgin finds that he also has to be stern even as others. As early as January 10, 1858, a week after the occupation of the city, "I addressed the governor in a pretty arrogant tone. I did so out of kindness, as I now know what fools they are, and what calamities they bring upon themselves, or rather on the wretched people, by their pride and trickery." But what the novice was only beginning to find out the veterans had learned years before.[38]
His attitude to his countrymen generally is scarcely less censorious than towards the officials who had borne, and were yet to bear, the burden and heat of the day in China. From Calcutta he wrote:—